Robert Muldoon served as prime minister of New Zealand from 1975 to 1984. His direct, bullying style of leadership, which he claimed represented “government of the ordinary bloke”, made waves across the world, and is reminiscent of the tactics of modern demagogues like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro.

Muldoon also represented a New Zealand still intertwined with Britain, its former imperial master, and closed off to the rest of the World. That New Zealand has since largely died, and the country has become more liberal, more open and more culturally at ease with itself. In this sense, Muldoon’s story might tell us much about the changing Commonwealth, and whether the Crown abroad, on the weekend of the Coronation of a new monarch, has a future.

My guest today is Bernard Hickey. Bernard is an independent New Zealand journalist and political commentator, he has a very informative and wide-ranging Substack newsletter called The Kaka, which I recommend to you all.

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